


Private Literature

by SpaceWall



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Canon Compliant, Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jean-Luc Picard needs a hug, M/M, Past Torture, Talking About Trauma With Spock and Tyler: the Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26484925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: Spock and Ash Tyler spend the remainder of their lives with a secret memory, like the sword of Damocles, hanging over their heads. This is the story of who they shared it with.Countdown to Disco S3 (no spoilers for that). Spoilers for S2.Title from Aldous Huxley. “Every man's memory is his private literature.”
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Spock Prime, James T. Kirk/Spock, Jean-Luc Picard & Seven of Nine, Jean-Luc Picard & Spock, Michael Burnham & Spock, Michael Burnham/Ash Tyler | Voq, Michael Burnham/Sylvia Tilly, Spock & Ash Tyler | Voq
Comments: 48
Kudos: 143





	1. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

**Author's Note:**

> The premise of this story was that I wanted to write a Disco crossover but they’re all stuck in the future so fuck me I guess. So instead I decided to write a series of shorts with the Disco characters being discussed with or by people from various works. Semi-chronological. We’ll have Kirk-Spock-Tyler (Post ST5). Tyler + Amanda (post ST3). Spock + Picard (Post TNG 4:2). Picard + Seven (Post Picard S1), and Spock+Kirk2 (Post-2009).
> 
> CW/TW: grief/mourning. Canonical character deaths. References to Ash Tyler’s deeply fucked up past.

At a guess, Jim would have placed the man around his own age, maybe slightly older. He looked human, or close enough, with brown skin and black hair that was greying across his head. His beard had flashes of white. His face was angular, and very handsome, and his eyes seemed serious and sad. 

“What can I do for you, Mr…”

“Admiral,” the man said, in a tone that suggested he meant himself, although it could have gone either way. “I was told I could find Spock here.”

Jim looked over his shoulder, to where his husband was sitting at their kitchen table. Then back at the probable-admiral. 

“You can. I don’t think I caught your name.” Jim offered a hand. “Jim Kirk.”

After a tense moment, rather like the first – and last – time Jim had tried to shake hands with a Vulcan he wasn’t married to, the Admiral took his hand. “Ash Tyler. If you can tell Spock I’m here, I would be very grateful.”

He might have been dressed like a civilian, in a fitted grey jacket, green shirt and black jeans, but he certainly didn’t talk like one. Definitely an admiral. 

“There’s an Admiral Tyler here to see you, Mr. Spock.”

Even after decades together, Jim still could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Spock flinch. This was one of them. He set his PADD down with a thunk. “Invite him in, please.” Uncharacteristically, he did not stand to greet the admiral. 

As the door slid shut behind him, Tyler gave Jim an authoritative look. “I don’t suppose you could give us some time alone, Jim.” The address felt overly familiar. 

Jim hesitated. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Spock alone in such an uncomfortable situation. Spock settled the matter for him. “Anything you have to say, Admiral Tyler, I’m sure you can say in front of my husband.”

They rarely said the word in public, even now. It usually wasn’t relevant. They used bond-mate, when speaking to Vulcans, but almost never ‘husband’. 

Tyler looked down at his hands. “I had hoped to speak more openly.”

“You have gone without speaking to me for thirty years. I imagine you can do so a little longer.”

There was a flash of anger in the Admiral’s eyes, then gone just as suddenly when he looked down at his hands. “I came because I heard about Sybok. I know you weren’t close – that he wasn’t around when you were growing up – but I’m sorry, anyways. Your people, your family, that’s part of your self, and I know what it is to lose yourself.”

Spock, to Jim’s familiar eyes, looked contrite. “I am aware. I think you perhaps overestimate the value Sybok’s presence held in my life.”

“I don’t imagine that made the reminder any more pleasant.”

Ever so slightly, Spock shook his head. For a Vulcan, that was a great deal. He wouldn’t have been ashamed as such with just Jim, but it was a surprise to see him so quietly sad in front of a complete stranger. Or, well, evidently someone who was not a stranger to Spock. 

“I really think,” Tyler said, “that we should discuss this in private.”

Spock folded his hands on the table. “You are in charge, are you not? Of all of it? You control what is and is not permissible to discuss.” At a nod from Tyler, he said, “We will tell Jim. As my bond-mate, it causes both of us distress for me to be unable to speak of this.” Tyler was silent. Spock, who rarely ranted, continued, “Thirty years, Ash. Thirty years to the day, by Earth’s reckoning, and I have never once said so much as her name. I did what I promised to do. What I helped enshrine into our regulations. You were always surrounded by people who knew, but since Chris and Una left…”

Since Jim came to the Enterprise. A secret – a woman? – Spock had kept from him for their entire acquaintance, that Pike had been privileged to know about.

“Thirty years,” Tyler echoed, very quietly. “Why do you think I chose today?”

“Why do you think I’m on Earth today?” He’d requested that they take a few days leave. There’d been minor repairs to make, and Jim hadn’t really put more thought into it then that. 

Tyler looked at Jim, very carefully. “Mr. Kirk, you’ve been a decorated hero of the Federation. If asked, what would you give up in its service?”

It was a question he’d been forced to ask himself far, far too many times. “Everything,” he said, eventually, meeting Tyler’s dark and knowing eyes, “except for him.”

“What if I told you the very fabric of time was in danger?”

Jim hoped, most sincerely, to never hear those words again as long as he lived. “What do you need, Admiral?”

“Tyler,” Spock cut in, voice sharp. At last, he’d risen from his chair. “I trust him implicitly. With everything, including this. My mind is his mind, save for this. I suspect you know better than anyone the pain of keeping secrets from yourself.”

The Admiral winced, and Jim expected there was a story, there. He turned between Spock and Jim for a moment before looking at Spock. “You can confirm that he is wholly and entirely himself?” Spock inclined his head. “You swear to take responsibility for eliminating him if this knowledge becomes a liability?”

Well that was… something. 

“I do.” He looked at Jim. “However, that will not be necessary.”

“Well,” Tyler said, and pulled out a seat at their table to make himself comfortable, “let us tell you the whole sorry tale, then. If Michael knew I was seriously contemplating keeping you from your bondmate, we’d have another fucking signal on our hands.”

Spock ducked his head in what Jim realized was his first genuine smile of the day. He sobered quickly when Jim, unable to resist, asked, “who is Michael?”

“Michael Burnham,” Spock said, the unfamiliar name flowing off his tongue as if it belonged there, “is my sister. Thirty years ago today, she and her crew chose to be sucked into the future, wiping out in a single swoop Starfleet’s most cutting edge research in the field of astromycology, the closest familial relationship of that or any stage of my life, the known lives of dozens of Starfleet’s best and brightest, who were to an ensign decorated veterans of the Klingon war, and an artificial intelligence that would have destroyed the Federation.”

“To protect the future and the past,” Tyler said, to his clasped hands, “those of us who remained, who knew any part of the truth, elected never to speak of them again. The USS Discovery was marked as destroyed in the line of duty, and for thirty years, any trace of their missions have been slowly purged from the record entirely. By the time the living memory of the crew – your memory, Spock, as a Vulcan – passes, there will be no record of any such ship ever having existed at all.”

There was something so incredibly familiar about that name. “Michael Burnham the mutineer?”

The last time he’d seen Spock bristle that fast, someone had insulted Jim to his face. “Michael Burnham the war hero.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tyler said, still looking at his hands, “Michael was a mutineer, and a fucking excellent one at that. She saved all of us by refusing to follow orders on Qo’noS. She hated what happened because of her first mutiny, but she never denied the choice she made, the consequences it had. They were hers.”

The details of Burnham’s mutiny had slipped his mind, over the years, but, “when the hell were you on Qo’noS?”

Tyler and Spock exchanged a long, meaningful look before Tyler gestured in a vaguely encouraging manner. “If you’re telling him everything about Discovery, he’ll have to know that as well. It’s just lucky the pair of you already know about the Terran Empire.”

Spock blinked. “The Discovery had encounters with that parallel universe?”

“You didn’t know about that?” When Spock said nothing, Tyler told him, “our first captain was from there. He was using Stamets to try and get himself home. That was why Pike needed to be brought in. And you remember Phillipa, don’t you? She used to be the Terran Empress.”

“I thought she was Michael’s first captain. I assumed that her death during the mutiny had been… misreported.”

“No, she died. I was there. Michael, being Michael, decided to kidnap her counterpart in the aftermath of a coup. Did you think a regular Starfleet captain was just the sort of person to immediately resort to murder to solve every problem? She kept threatening to eat Saru! You thought they worked together for years?”

“I inferred from context that it was a joke, or that her personality had been radically altered by her experiences in the course of the war.” Human nuances did sometimes escape Spock, especially those surrounding friendly teasing. 

Tyler gave him a baffled, slightly offended look, and opened his mouth to retort.

“Excuse me,” Jim said, as mildly as he could, “would someone please explain to me what the hell you’re talking about?”

And so, in bits and pieces, Tyler and Spock did. Childhoods on Vulcan and Qo’Nos. The Binary Stars. A brilliant, courageous woman who sounded so much like all the best parts of Spock, his curiosity, his wonder, his integrity. But so very human. Neither of them looked at Jim as they spoke of lights in the sky, of a mental hospital and a Klingon temple. They filled out the crew of the Discovery. Saru, the first Kelpian in Starfleet, a far shout from the free Kelpians Jim had once met on a weekend seminar a few months before he took on the Enterprise. Pike and Lorca, a more unlikely pair of captains a starship has never had. Neither of them remembered much of the rest of the senior staff. Doctor Pollard was the CMO, but neither had known her well, and they weren’t entirely confident who the chief engineer had been. Tyler better remembered Doctor Culber, who he’d once murdered, and Spock remembered Ensign Tilly, Michael’s sweet roommate. Together, they managed to name the bridge crew, except one, a missing spot where a woman called Ariam had died and they didn’t remember who had replaced her. 

“They were extraordinary people,” Tyler said, towards the ground. “They had to be, to be part of something like that. The Discovery was supposed to be a science vessel, and the people on it were all scientists, in one way or another. Even Lorca, twisted bastard that he was. Even me, and I didn’t know it until later. They were people who looked at the universe, even in its blackest moments, and saw potential. They rode on a highway made of mushrooms and they saw wonders the rest of us can only dream of. And they saved people. Spock and me more than most. Even when you were a suspected murderer and I actually was a murderer, they still fought to give us our lives back. Our selves back. Neither of us could leave with them, but…”

But they wanted to. Of course they had. If it were Jim’s crew, he would have done the same. Still, it was like a knife in the heart to know that they weren’t the only people who meant that for Spock. It was an unpleasant jealousy, one he disliked in himself. But if Spock had gone into the future they never would have met, and Jim would have been alone. He found it difficult to accept that, if not for a quirk of fate, their meeting would never have come to pass. 

“Ash,” Spock said, in his usual calm tones, “I need to speak to Jim alone, now. Thank you for coming, and for your condolences, but this is something I must bear on my own.”

The Admiral nodded, seriously, and stood. “Thank you, Spock. You were right about the need to speak of her, just once. I’ve always been lucky to have my position, in that regard.” He paused at the door, looking to Spock one last time. “You may hear from me again soon. Intel suggests we’ll have the new Chancellor at the bargaining table in under five years. It would feel wrong, to have that be so without the children of Sarek there to see it.”

There was a certain brightness in Spock’s eyes at that. Surprising, given the mention of his father. “Should I offer you congratulations?”

Tyler shook his head. “No. Not yet, at least. Perhaps not ever. It’s… a hard thing, to have an irreconcilable difference in your head. The part of me that was Voq, even though he isn’t conscious, and hasn’t been for decades, still remembers what he hated and feared about the Federation.”

“Then I will be sure to congratulate Ash Tyler, when the time is right.” Spock raised his hand. “Live long and prosper, Admiral Tyler, Son of None.”

Tyler smiled at the mixing of the names. “Peace and long life, Spock, Son of Sarek.” Then, perhaps just to be contrary, he added something in Klingon, and was gone.

Into the silence, Spock said, “Your feelings about the presence of a Klingon in our home must be complicated. Admiral Tyler is a complicated man. But he and I have always had a certain amount in common. Leaving Michael aside, although you should not doubt that he loved her very deeply, we have both always known what it is to be torn between two worlds. I would ask your forgiveness in seeking this kinship from him, but I find I cannot entirely help it.”

There was so much to unpack. Indeed, part of Jim roiled now at the implication of peace, real peace, with the Klingons. But on the other hand… “he chose us. That has to count for something.”

Spock inclined his head. “Thank you, Jim. For understanding that.”

Spock had spent their entire relationship, and their friendship before that, with an open wound in his heart, unable to speak to a single soul about it. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“He was wrong,” Spock said opaquely, before clarifying, “Admiral Tyler was wrong. At the time, I did want to go with the Discovery into the future. But that alternate path is not one I have seriously contemplated for many years. Michael was my sister, but the Discovery was not my ship, not my crew. They were her family, not mine. I only wish that you could have had a chance to know her.”

All the time Tyler had been there, Jim had avoided touching Spock. It would have been rude to violate Vulcan custom in the presence of another, but he did so now, taking Spock’s hands in his, pressing a kiss to the back of the right one. “I wish I could have known her.”

“She would have loved you. Michael was the first person to make me feel able to walk the fine line between my two worlds. She held me up while I found my balance. I was unsure if I could do such a thing without her. The last advice she ever gave me was to find someone utterly different from myself, and to reach for them. Those words exactly. ‘Reach for them.’”

And Spock had taken that advice, and had found him. The love Spock held for these people so long gone did not diminish the love he held for Jim. It enhanced it. “She seems like a very sensible woman.”

That made Spock laugh, just a little, lifted some of the sadness from his shoulders. “At the time she utterly confounded me. Sensible is not the word I would use. She was… limitless. There was no distance that was too far to go for the people she loved. To alternate dimensions and into the mycelial network, Section 31 bases and nine hundred years into the future. If she had been present when I… perished, I can only imagine with trepidation what her response would have been. She believed there was no such thing as a lost cause, even when everything seemed hopeless, and was willing to place her own life in danger to save just one person. Even a stranger. Even someone who didn’t deserve it and treated her terribly.”

From the sound of it, Spock was thinking of someone in particular when he discussed those who didn’t deserve it. Jim hoped he wasn’t thinking of himself. 

“You could show me, if you wanted.” He guided Spock’s fingers to his meld points, a position familiar to the both of them by now. “I can’t meet your sister, but… I can know her as you know her. I can know what she means to you.”

“My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts,” Spock said, and there, sitting at their table but with his mind in Sarek’s home on Vulcan, Jim met a little human girl called Michael.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regardless of what canon gives me I will refuse to accept any option other than Ash Tyler growing old and dignified and powerful and living to see peace between the Federation and the Klingons (or, at least, the cessation of active hostilities). Also Spock+Kirk are married in all canons sorry that’s the rules. 
> 
> Talk to me but only if you say nice things about whatever Treks of which you Speak.


	2. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of years earlier, Ash Tyler calls the woman who might have been his mother-in-law, in another life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did Ash Tyler think it was finally time to speak to Spock, really?

“I was going to call to offer you condolences, Amanda, but I’m very glad to hear that they’re… no longer necessary.”

Ash had been as surprised as anyone when he had returned from Romulus to the news that Spock was no longer dead. Well, that wasn’t true. The reason he hadn’t offered condolences prior to leaving for Romulus in the first place was because he had learned never to count the Children of Sarek out of anything. But that didn’t mean that returns from the dead were an everyday occurance for him. Far from it. He thought his life would have been much happier if they were. 

Amanda smiled, with the giddy, grateful sort of happiness Ash thought any parent would give to have their child back. 

He never let his thoughts linger on the subject of children, if he could help it. 

“Thank you, Captain Tyler.” Not captain for long, hopefully. It didn’t really matter, of course. He’d been his own command structure since he’d been a Commander. But the Admiral’s uniform would suit him, he thought. Better, it would suit Section 31 to have an Admiral again. 

Amanda looked tired. Even though she was smiling, there was a residual sadness underneath. She’d been in the process of grieving when she had learned it was pointless. That was enough to cause emotional distress in anyone. 

“How is he?”

Her smile slipped, the exhaustion taking over. “Healing, but… it’s not an easy thing to recover from. He’s lost a great deal of himself.”

“He’s been lost before. It hasn’t stopped him yet.” Section 31 used Ash’s skills at being comforting more than he assumed it had ever used Leland’s. “Is it his mind or his body that needs help recovering?”

Vulcan had some of the best doctors in the federation, of course, but Ash’s personal opinion of their mental health practices ranked them somewhere between ‘poor’ and ‘dismal’, leaving them with a similar score to the Cardassians and the Romulans, below the Ferengi but above the Klingons. 

“He… he’s still working on remembering some things.” 

Did Amanda know his story? He couldn’t remember. He thought Spock had, but… perhaps he and L’rell were the only people in this time who knew all of it, now. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Michael would have been on a ship to wherever Spock was the second she’d heard. Hell, Michael probably would have been at Kirk’s side every step of the way doing whatever the hell it was they’d done. Ash was still waiting on reports from his official sources to figure out exactly what that was. But he knew that unless it was some form of mass murder, Michael would have been there, eagerly participating in bringing her brother back. 

Amanda shook her head. “He has everything he needs right here.”

It occurred to Ash then that he’d been paying less attention to Spock’s personal life than he should have been. He had someone on the crew of the enterprise keeping an eye, but that only gave him notice about big things, not about whether Spock and his crew were good friends, or more. “Are they… close?”

‘Are they like we were?’ He wanted to ask. For Michael’s sake, he wanted to know, ‘Did Spock, against all the bounds of possibility, manage to find or make a true family for himself again?’

It seemed monstrously unfair, if so, that any person would find that twice in a lifetime, but it would have been even more unfair if he hadn’t. Michael, after all, would have wanted no less for her little brother. 

Amanda’s lips quirked up in amusement. “Since Spock has married one of them, I sincerely hope so.”

The agent Ash had assigned to bring him personal updates on the Enterprise and her crew was getting fired. “Married?”

“In the Vulcan tradition. Bonding, technically. It was, I gather, something of an open secret.”

Then his agent was definitely being fired. Or at least reassigned to something menial and unpleasant. 

“To who?”

“To Jim Kirk, obviously.” Amanda seemed to be looking at something out of Ash’s line of sight. “I would say you should come see them for yourself, but I’d rather you didn’t arrest my son’s husband.”

She did have a point. Nobody ever wanted a call from Section 31. “Would Spock even recognize me?”

“If he didn’t,” she said, “then he would need you to tell him what he’s forgotten. He deserves to know.”

It might have been less painful to forget. But Michael deserved better than to be forgotten by one of the people she loved most. She deserved so much better.

“Perhaps, if they ever make it back to Earth…”

“And the odds of that happening without Jim being arrested are somewhat within your hands, aren’t they?”

There were more than a few admirals who owed him favours. The trick was going to be to know which to call in, and when. “No promises.”

She shook her head, with a slight amusement that reminded him painfully of her daughter. “I know you always do what you can.”

It was very rarely enough, but, “yes. I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun bonus content: guess who Tyler’s spy on the enterprise is (I have no idea)


	3. Star Trek: The Next Generation (Post S4E2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shortly after his return to the Enterprise at the end of “Family”, Picard gets a surprise visitor in the form of a one of Starfleet’s most famous ever officers, and receives a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/Tw: discussions of past trauma and physical and psychological violence (Picard + Borg, Tyler’s surgeries). Non-canonical character death from old age. Canonical chronic illness (Sarek)

“Captain Picard.”

Jean-Luc knew that face. Everyone in Starfleet, or with an interest in its best science and command history, did. 

“Ambassador Spock. I admit, I had not anticipated any guests on the Enterprise prior to our departure.” He wondered if the Ambassador had come to speak about his father’s illness. He wasn’t sure if, at the moment, he would be able to bear the subject. 

The Vulcan lowered the ta’al he had raised in greeting. “I apologize if you were not informed of my arrival. I assure you that my visit will be brief. My intention was only to bring you a gift.”

It seemed an odd thing, to be brought a gift by a genuine hero of the Federation when all he’d done was get captured. But it would have been rude to point out as much. “Then I thank you, but I admit to some curiosity.”

Spock nodded once, “an understandable reaction.” 

For the first time, Jean-Luc noticed that he was carrying a parcel of brown paper under his arm. It was this that he extended to Jean-Luc with steady hands. 

“Some years ago, an old associate of mine died. He was not a young man, and had certain… unique health complications that made it surprising that he lived as long as he did.” With Vulcans, and with the elderly in general, sometimes it was best to trust that they would reach their point in time. Picard said nothing. 

“Upon his death, I was surprised to discover that he had left a set of memoirs, for my dispensation to ‘a person who needed to know’. It took me until very recently to understand what he meant. I had previously intended to dispense them to Lieutenant Worf, for reasons that will become apparent when you read them; however, given several recent events, I have determined that the late Admiral Tyler would have preferred that they be in your hands, as do I.”

The parcel in his hands seemed oddly heavy. This was a man’s life in his hands. A gift that he didn’t understand, and was sure he didn’t deserve. 

“Why?”

The Ambassador did not emote strongly, but after years with Data, Picard thought he’d gotten good at picking up on almost imperceptible clues about behaviour. In the pause before the Ambassador spoke, he sensed nervousness, a desire not to offend. 

“Perhaps we might speak in your quarters,” Spock suggested, finally, and Picard stepped out of his way. There, he availed himself of the chair. Spock remained standing, straight and steady. 

“What I have given you,” said Spock, “is one of the most classified documents in the Federation, even with the Admiral’s considerable self-censoring. It does not cover his entire life. Rather, it covers a period of about six years in a non-chronological order, beginning chronologically with the Battle of the Binary Stars, which I am sure you studied at the academy.”

Picard inclined his head, thinking, rather idiosyncratically, of Worf, and a time when they would have stood on opposite sides of a battlefield. 

“Admiral Tyler was… well, perhaps it is best in his own words. Page seventeen, Captain.” 

Jean-Luc tore away the wrapping to find a genuine paper journal, with the letters AT signed in a stylized fashion inside the replicated leather cover. It was an anachronism. Someone else, probably Spock himself, had painstakingly numbered each of the pages. He turned to seventeen and read. 

_My memories inform me that I am human. That I was raised on Earth. Those memories are not mine. My bones inform me that I was once something else, carved and remade. My memories hold that, too, but those memories were not made by Ash Tyler. Equally as I have been him, I was also Voq, Son of None. I had no sense of self, no knowledge of what I was, or wanted, or who I could become. Discovering those things, is a gift. It is also a burden. When you have been made into a tool, or a weapon. When your hands have been used to strike down your friends, knowledge is always a burden. I will carry those things with me for however long I have left. But I have also learned that there is always a choice. That they can shave down your bones and program your memories and make you into anything, but you can still choose._

_There will always be those of us who float between worlds, between selves. It is difficult to know the difference between what you are and what you were made._

Picard closed the journal hard. Only the flimsy quality of the paper prevented it from being a true ‘slam’. 

Spock looked at him, with the sort of piercing gaze only a telepath could really master. “I think there are very few people in all of history who could ever really understand what it is you’ve been through. Regardless of your differing circumstances – Voq was a willing participant in the experiments that created Ash Tyler – I believe he was one of them.” 

“But I’m not Tyler am I? I’m Voq.” The Klingon name was hard on his lips, more guteral than Worf’s, which fell easily after all these years. 

“No.” Spock told him, with no room for argument. “You are Tyler, in this analogy, because you are making the choice. He did not become Ash Tyler by succumbing to any easy procedure. He was intended to be a sleeper agent, to arise as Voq on hearing his command. He became Tyler by fighting that command for as long as he could, until his… friends, could help him. The power is in the fight, even if you can’t win. It is in what you fight for. Who you fight for.” 

He stopped abruptly, as if he’d said too much. It was an odd look to see on a Vulcan. It made him look, Picard thought, rather like his father. Though of course, the son was half-human, and too young to be suffering from his father’s illness.

Jean-Luc looked down at the book in his hands, and thought about fighting, desperately, to form his mouth into the words to tell Data how to save them all. His body had felt anything but his own. It had been, without question, the hardest battle of his life.

“Perhaps I haven’t answered your question. I chose you because I believe that Admiral Tyler entrusted me with this duty so that I could help him pay forward a favour my elder sister did for him, a very long time ago. She helped him find the strength that allowed him to resist his programming, to recover. I believe it would fulfil both of their wishes to pass that gift on to someone else who needs it. When you’ve finished with it… perhaps you should find someone else trustworthy and do the same.”

Stroking the paper slightly where his fingers rested between pages sixteen and seventeen, Jean-Luc looked at the Vulcan clearly for the first time. This was someone who was weighed upon by tremendous grief, who had done tremendous things, and had not come to judge his failure. He’d come to say that it was alright, or, more importantly, that it would be. Beverly and Will and Deanna had all been saying or thinking the same thing, but they were more inclined to comforting lies. He did not think Ambassador Spock would lie to him. Not about this. 

“I didn’t know you had an elder sister.” He’d attended Spock’s brother’s wedding, but had thought Spock was the eldest of them. Sarek’s mindmeld hadn’t included any mention of her, which was exceedingly strange. 

Spock bowed his head, and Jean-Luc, who had never been a telepath, thought he caught a hint of the terrible grief that weighed upon him. “Adopted, human. Her name was Michael. You’ll find more than a few mentions of her in Tyler’s journal.”

“It seems to be going around,” he said, rather nonsensically, “the family thing. I went home to visit my brother. Mr. Worf’s parents came to visit. Mr. Crusher received a message from his deceased father.”

Spock did not note aloud the incoherence of the statement. Perhaps it was because his own father had been on the Enterprise not so long ago. “At the times in my life where I have lost who I am, family has been a significant part of my regaining of that. But not all family is defined by the bounds of blood or law.” Abruptly changing tack, he added, “The command can erect a wall, between you and your crew. Remember that those of them who know you best would much rather you weep with them than suffer alone. They will see strength in your struggle, not weakness”

He really was an odd Vulcan. “Thank you, Ambassador. I will… consider your words.”

“Do,” he encouraged stepping towards the door. “It is illogical, to feel shame for actions perpetrated against, rather than by, you.”

“Perhaps I am no Vulcan.”

“No. A Vulcan would not have had the equally illogical emotional resistance, to press on as long as you did. I still have enough friends in Starfleet to have seen their reports, I know this fact, and if I did not, my father’s assurances would have convinced me of the fact.”

He raised his hand again. “Live long and prosper, Jean-Luc Picard. And remember. Take what you need and then give it away to the next person.”

Jean-Luc mirrored the gesture. “How will I know?”

“You will know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fucking love Picard and Spock. This scene is the scene that made me write the whole rest of the fic so I really hope you like it.


	4. Star Trek: Picard (Post-Season 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven reminds Picard of a story he shared with her a very long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW: canonical character deaths (Data, Icheb).

They had been back on La Sirena for an entire week before Seven remembered to ask him about it. 

“Picard… do you remember those papers you gave me. About the Klingon Section 31 leader?”

He glanced up from his desk, and for a second, Seven almost thought she’d imagined that memory. It had been a strange conversation, one she’d never spoken of since. 

“Do you still have them?”

She didn’t, but Kathryn did, in a box she’d sworn on her life never to open. She still trusted Kathryn implicitly, even after so many years apart. “They’re safe.”

“Good.” Picard seemed far away. He’d gained that expression often, in their time together, but it was less frequent after his rebirth. She wasn’t sure how much of that was the lifting of impending death from his shoulders and how much was the final, complete death of Data. 

“And your copy?”

That brought him back down to earth, to borrow an idiom. “I don’t have a copy. Yours is the original, and the only one. The information was… sensitive.”

So much so that he’d never even told her the name of the person who had given it to him. Presumably not the long dead Admiral Tyler, but someone who’d known him. There was no guessing who it might have been, since all the people mentioned by name in Tyler’s writings didn’t seem to exist. Seven had looked, after Picard had given her the file. Except for Tyler himself and some of the Klingon political figures from that time, there wasn’t much to find. 

“I didn’t realize.”

That classic Picard smile, a little playful, a little sad. Like a wise and bemused deity. 

“I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t the point. The sharing it… that was the point. It was meant to help.”

And it had, in a way. But more from the act of Picard coming to her and understanding, even if he hadn’t wanted to talk about it directly, than in the gift itself. Tyler’s words hadn’t meant nearly as much to her as Picard’s speech, about how he was ‘given this gift to pass it on to the next person who needed it’. It had been important to her then, to be seen in that way. As one in an unspoken lineage.

“So you never gave it to anyone else?”

Picard seemed to drift away again. “I told a couple of people about it, even without giving them the papers. Data knew. Worf knows. I always meant to tell more people, Hugh among them. But somehow I never found the time.”

A select group, then. Tyler, his friend who’d given Picard the dossier, Picard himself, Seven, Icheb, Data, and Worf. “Did they tell anyone else?”

That terrible sadness. “Worf may have. Data… no.”

Perhaps she’d only been setting herself up to confess. “I told Icheb. He didn’t pass it on either.”

It wasn’t an ancient tradition. It didn’t matter if it died with them. And if they’d wanted to spread it, there were hundreds of Romulan XBs they could have told. But Picard seemed, then, to understand why she’d brought it up. Why she’d been thinking about it, these last few days. 

“You want to tell Soji.” The sadness seemed to lift, a little. That confirmed that he had been thinking about Data again. 

“The original papers were about finding out that you’re really a secret undercover operative and having to decide whether who you were programmed to be is the same thing as who you are, and whether your loyalties lie with what you are by birth or what you have believed you were all your conscious life. Does anyone else in the universe deserve it more than she does?”

There was a spark of possibility back in his eyes. “I did say that Data never had the chance to pass it on.”

“You did.” It wouldn’t unmake what Seven had lost in Icheb, but she could hardly begrudge Picard anything resembling a second chance. “I can have the original back in a couple of weeks. I just have to make a call to an old friend.”

That was going to be awkward. But the look on Soji’s face might be worth her suffering. And anyways, Kathryn had always promised to vet any potential girlfriends extensively. Maybe she could come meet Raffi herself.

“I would appreciate that very much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We love these babies! Next week (14th!) we wrap up with Old Spock!
> 
> Also: the reason there is no DS9 chapter is because I literally could not figure out who would share it with who, but I would love to know people’s opinions on if/how it gets there (Worf+Jadzia and Data+Bashir were my top two pairs of suspects, but I just couldn’t get there narratively. Although if Dax is in Disco3 that possibility could be very funny because it could go full circle)


	5. Star Trek (2009)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spock Prime and Kelvin-timeline Kirk go to a memorial and visit a new-old friend. A happy ending, of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW: discussion of past character death (Ash Tyler) + act of terrorism/genocide (destruction of Vulcan + death of cadets)

It was to Spock’s surprise, and not inconsiderable pleasure, that he ran into Kirk (he had come to think of the younger Jim in such a manner, for the preservation of his own sanity), while he sat on a park bench watching them dredge the remains of Nero’s drill from the bottom of the bay. 

“Hey, Ambassador.” Kirk sat beside him, with a casual ease. “I didn’t think I’d see you here. Too close to my Spock for safety, maybe.” 

His heart twinged unacceptably at the words ‘my Spock’. “My presence was necessary. I intend to rendez-vous with the survivors of the Vulcan High Council. As I am one of the eldest remaining members of our species, I must accept that duty accordingly.” 

“So you don’t think Spock will be joining the colony, then?” 

Not if he had anything to say about it. He would not allow his failure to rob his counterpart of the family he would find on the Enterprise. “No, Jim. I do not.” 

With the hum of thrusters, the shuttle that was hooked to the drill began to lift up, pulling away from where the bridge had already come perilously close to destruction. It was loud, the sound resonating over the water. Spock winced. He’d come here to witness history changing in person, but now that he was here, he only wanted to leave.

Kirk’s hand touched his upper arm, careful to avoid flesh. “They finished the placeholder memorial to the cadets and instructors, yesterday. I was on my way to see it, and I… wouldn’t mind the company.” 

It was so like Jim, to have to go see it in person. If Spock knew him, Kirk would be going to see it every year he was on Earth for the rest of his natural life. Spock stood, and let his companion lead the way. 

The temporary memorial was holding place for a design to be selected later this year. Submissions were open, according to a sign posted nearby. See holonet for details. This temporary memorial certainly wasn’t up to the scope of what it was trying to achieve. For now, it was a set of slabs of obsidian, each with the name of a ship, followed by its commanding officers, and then, in descending alphabetical order, the cadets.

Kirk led them over to the USS Jemisin, and seemed to be scanning the names with a purpose in mind. Spock did the same, rather haphazardly. 

“Here,” Kirk said, and traced his finger underneath a name. _Gaila._ “I knew her. She was an engineering cadet. Brilliant. Uhura’s roommate.”

Spock found his own gaze stuck at the top of the slate, where the instructors who comprised the senior staff were. He traced a line underneath underneath it just as Kirk had done. “Do you know this man?”

 _Lt. Ash Tyler._ The real one, presumably, who had been dead for two years by this point in Spock’s reality. He couldn’t imagine Michael’s Tyler as an academy instructor. 

“Only by reputation,” Kirk told him. “He used to take the security senior class fishing. Said it was going to teach them patience.” 

Definitely the real Tyler. Voq was probably out there, somewhere, still a Klingon. Spock suddenly found himself consumed with a need to know where the others were. If Kirk’s time at the academy had been different, maybe the others had been as well. Were any of them dead in the ashes of Vulcan? Where was Michael? He suspected, from Kirk’s memory of his counterpart, that they either had never known each other, or had not yet reconciled as they had in his own life. Otherwise, he was sure, his distance from his own humanity could not have been so great as that which Kirk had seen.

Kirk, praying him from his own thoughts, asked, “did you know him?” 

“No. He is… not the person I thought of, when I saw the name.”

He couldn’t imagine the Tyler he remembered, with steel-grey hair, an admiral’s pips, and the black badge of his secret order, taking rowdy cadets out fishing. 

With some kindness, Kirk looked to him. “Do you want help looking for any other names?” 

Michael would have said the same, if it were the Discovery crew who were here and the Enterprise crew who were gone. She would have gone over the entire quadrant with a fine-toothed comb looking for Jim, if Spock had asked it. He was sure.

The nostalgia and the grief hadn’t been so strong in many years. Not since Spock was the age that his counterpart was now, in fact. When he had still been serving under Pike, who knew well the source of his silent suffering. But he could not speak of this to Kirk. If there were any fraction of a chance that Michael’s history was the same, that she was cast into the future of this time as well, then he had to preserve that secret. The risk was too great. 

But he had to know. And there was one thing, other than the Klingons, who he could ask after with impunity. 

“Does the USS Shenzou mean anything to you?”

Kirk’s eyebrows furrowed. “It wasn’t at Vulcan. I memorized those names.” 

He was so like Jim that it was almost painful. It struck Spock in the most unexpected ways, but always like a wound. It seemed viscerally unfair that he, his bond mate, and his sister, had all been sucked into temporal anomalies one way or the other, but none of them were together. At least his Michael had her crew. He and Jim were alone. 

“Could you… find out what happened to it? It may or may not still be in service.” 

Kirk pulled a communicator from his belt. “Bones, do me a favour.” 

“Like hell.” 

That made Kirk smile, and Spock felt a twinge of unavoidable pleasure at their odd dynamic. “Two seconds. Look up the USS Shenzou.” 

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Then McCoy’s voice, fed-up. “Currently in service repatriating Vulcans. Captain Saru, first officer Commander Detmer. Until last year, it was Admiral Georgiou’s ship. What on God’s green Earth are you getting into now?”

“Nothing. Love you, Bones.” 

He turned back to Spock. By silent agreement, they walked out of this graveyard. It took Kirk some time to work up the nerve to voice his thoughts. “Did that answer the question you’re really trying to ask?” 

It had, to an extent. Georgiou, presumably the real one, was alive. Saru and Detmer remained in their correct timeline, and on their original vessel. The USS Shenzou had never been destroyed in the Battle of the Binary Stars. Something had changed their fate. What it was, exactly, Spock could only hypothesize. 

“Repatriating Vulcans.” Returning the civilians from Vulcan science outposts and federation colonies, such as they were, to begin preparation for the new colony site. An idea flickered to life in Spock’s mind. He had been in contact with the High Council, as they had been party to his briefing with the Admiralty, about the causes of the destruction of Vulcan. He was working on identifying the colony site. It was the perfect excuse. He had access to records of every possible extant Vulcan resource. 

Doctari Alpha. 

“I think you’re lying, if you’re telling me you want to know about the Shenzou because of its involvement in repatriation efforts.”

“And you would be quite right, Mr. Kirk.” Spock led them both onto a ground transport, destined for the academy. He had a sudden, pressing need to access its library computers. “Suffice it to say this is not a matter you were involved with in my universe either.”

“In that case, you won’t mind telling me about it. No spoilers.”

It had taken decades of their relationship, and a degree of Ash Tyler – Voq’s – meddling for him to tell Jim about Discovery. About Michael. Perhaps it is only fitting that, with the catalyst of Ash Tyler – human – he should tell the story one last time. And had Voq-Tyler not ordered him to tell it, with the gift of the journals? It was only a fitting legacy. 

“I had… an adopted sister. She died very young. But if Ash Tyler lived to perish at Vulcan… then I have no idea where my sister would have been. I suspect she was never adopted by my parents.”

Kirk’s expression was one of sympathy. “You think there’s a chance she might have survived? Was she with the Vulcan Expeditionary Group?”

Michael would have found that funny. “She wanted to be, but if she had been, you certainly would have heard about it. My sister was human.”

Is human, alive in this time without ever having known me. Will be human, when she emerges in nine hundred years to discover that I apparently died with Romulus. When she learns that I failed to save our sister species.

“Starfleet, then? She served on the Shenzou.” At Spock’s raised eyebrow, Kirk grinned. “I’m getting better at reading you, I think. That’s for the best. You and my Spock have all the same tells. Are you going to tell me her name?”

He was already thinking about a future with the other Spock. About building their lives together. “I shouldn’t tell you that, not until I am certain.”

“Certain of what?”

It was so hard to lie to this baby-faced version of his husband, with bright eyes so unalike his, yet filled with all of his compassion and cleverness. 

No, it was impossible, not just hard. His mind filled with justifications. Saru had been critical to the Sphere Incident, the Sphere Incident had been critical to Control’s development, Control’s development had been the only reason Michael had ended up in the future. She wasn’t there, and he wouldn’t be putting her in danger to say the words. It was too different. Saying her name was safe, now. For the first time in Spock’s life, afterwards. 

“Her name is Michael Burnham. I believe I know where I can reliably find her in a Federation database.”

Kirk grabbed him with some force, by the shoulder. “Forget your databases, Spock. I know her!”

“How?”

His grin was wide, a little manic. “I was at her wedding.”

Her wedding. Not, presumably, to Ash Tyler. “Tell me about it?” 

“Let’s get off this shuttle.”

They ended up at the next stop closest to the campus, twenty minutes’ walk from the nearest class building. Jim turned, and walked in the other direction. 

“My first year in the academy,” Jim began, as he led the way. He was walking with purpose. “I tested into a senior astrophysics seminar. I said I was doing it in three years, and I was going to do it. I worked myself half to death that first year. But… well, I like a good time. I’m sure your Jim was the same. And the assistant instructor for the senior seminar was… gorgeous. And about my age.”

At that age, Spock might have slugged Kirk for talking like that about his sister. “Was she?” 

He turned to give Spock a radiant grin. “Sure. Does the name Sylvia Tilly mean anything to you?”

As Sylvia might have said: no fucking way. “It might.” 

“Well, she was doing the seminar as a favour. We went to the club together a few times, but mostly hit it off as friends. She’s smart as a whip. She shipped out over the winter semester. They posted her to the Discovery. We wrote a bit, mostly about academic matters. Flash forward two years, and she sends me a message that says she’s having a surprise wedding to her captain while they’re on shore leave, and would I like to come?” 

He wondered what Michael, his Vulcan-raised Michael, would have thought of her counterpart’s shenanigans. He suspected that Tilly would have found it highly entertaining. They’d always been good friends. Spock could imagine them happy together. 

“And Michael… is she happy?” 

Kirk stopped abruptly, in front of an old brownstone. “Sylvia messaged me again, last week. With all the instructors dead, they spent a lot of time contacting anyone who had ever taught at the academy. Michael had too, after she graduated. And the Discovery is a research vessel, so most of the crew has work they can do from Earth or papers to finish and present. Ergo…” 

He ran up the steps before Spock could say anything, and slammed his hand onto the door chime. “Sylvia! It’s Jim Kirk.”

This was a very, very bad idea. Kirk, at the top of the stairs, turned back and added, “the universe didn’t implode when you met me, did it?” 

That wasn’t Tilly, who opened the door and said, “Jim!” Who threw her arms around him with a laugh and continued, “you stupid man. You could have been killed. Admiral Georgiou told me the whole story. What were you thinking?” 

She didn’t sound like Michael. Her voice was so much lighter, and she smiled without the slight reluctance of someone who’d grown up in Sarek’s household, afraid of where their emotions would get them. 

“My plan worked, didn’t it?” 

The exasperated look he got transformed her face into that of Michael Burnham. That was when she spotted him. 

“And who’s this?” 

She came down the stairs to him, all seriousness, and offered the ta’al. “Captain Michael Burnham, USS Discovery.” 

He returned it, and its sentiment as well. “Ambassador Spock.”

“Ambassador to where?” 

He almost opened his mouth to say ‘Romulus’. “Nowhere, at the moment.”

“No, I imagine not. I grieve with thee, Ambassador.” 

And suddenly she was all Vulcan. Stiff posture, firm stance, face a clean slate. She was trying to make him feel better by closing off her own emotions. “Thank you. You’ve known Vulcans before, I see.”

He received an exceedingly proper nod. “I was raised on Doctari Alpha. But you already know that, don’t you… Ambassador Spock?” 

“Admiral Georgiou told you the whole story?” He’d never known the original Phillipa Georgiou, but if her counterpart was any indication, she enjoyed meddling, and she valued Michael’s advice highly. Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising she’d let slip to her scientist surrogate-daughter the most interesting scientific revelation of the last century or so. Especially if this Michael’s parents were still interested in temporal physics, or if Michael was Stamets’s commanding officer in this universe. 

She looked back to Jim, on the steps. “He already knows, I assume.” 

“Of course.” 

Michael ushered both of them into her home, with a certain air of command that Spock had known in the bearing of a dozen of the best captains he’d ever known. It fit her like a glove. She left Jim and Spock in her living room. Jim went over the bookshelf, admiring the collection of genuine paper books. Spock was more interested in the pictures. There were Michael and Tilly in their dress uniforms, looking unabashedly happy. There was Michael, perhaps sixteen or so, with her father, and another holo, when she was younger, with both of them. A different photo from the wedding, with a larger party: Michael’s father, Georgiou, and Saru on one side, with Stamets, Owosekun, and a couple who must have been Tilly’s parents on the other. There was another holo of them as well, at what looked to be Tilly’s graduation. 

The universe, it seemed, had a way of achieving certain ends, Spock realized, as he looked at a holo that must have been of all the wedding guests who were Starfleet members in their dress uniforms. Michael, Saru, Georgiou, Stamets and Culber, Detmer and Owosekun, Pollard and Linus and Rhys, and even Reno and poor Ariam, the officer who died fighting Control in her own mind. And Jim Kirk, in among them and completely oblivious to the fact that it should have been Spock – or Voq – in his place. It should have been, if time were not so fickle a mistress. But there was Kirk, instead. The universe had asserted that the USS Discovery crew should know each other, in any timeline, and the happier was the one where Spock never knew them.

“Sylvia will be back in a couple hours,” Michael said quietly from the doorway. She was carrying a tea tray. “I hope the pair of you will stay for dinner.” Seeming to read something in the mood of the room, her tone shifted. “I assume that the rest of Starfleet won’t be getting individual visits from our resident time traveller.” 

“No.” 

She poured the tea with the steady precision his sister had taken to every task.

“You knew me, then. I was someone important to you.” Her eyes seemed to stare into his katra. It was viscerally uncomfortable. “Not a lover. You aren’t really my type.”

Apparently, her type was whatever Ash Tyler who was Voq and Sylvia Tilly had in common.

“I’m not sure I should say. Can you tell me… what happened to your mother?”

“If it makes you feel better,” Kirk interjected from the bookshelf, “I lost my dad because of Nero’s impact on the timeline too.”

Michael set the teapot down, and turned one of the cups towards Spock. “My mother was killed in a laboratory accident when I was fifteen.”

Truth or lie designed to protect a technology too dangerous to lose? It was an interesting question. Michael seemed oddly calm about inviting a time traveller from a parallel dimension into her home. Of course, if she was still working with Stamets in this universe, it was more than likely that she’d seen stranger things. Though his long sleeves had covered them in the wedding photograph, Spock had taken care to note the near-imperceptible rise of his implants along his arms. But something told him that wasn’t all there was. 

“I believe a similar… incident occurred in my universe, although Doctari Alpha was abandoned after a Klingon attack several years earlier, in search of a… stolen artifact.” Michael gave him a look that said she understood perfectly exactly what had been stolen. “Michael and I were raised together on Vulcan.”

He left the fate of her father tactfully ambiguous. 

“I think I can guess what happened from there,” she said, with the impeccable calm of someone who had certainly already been aware that time travel was possible, and quite possibly also had visited a parallel dimension at some point. “Vulcan Expeditionary Group didn’t want a human, even one from a Vulcan colony. My father remembered Phillipa Georgiou was an old friend, she took me instead.”

“My father once called in that same favour, for Michael.”

“Fascinating.”

Spock could have gone on. It would have been the first time he’d really spoken about Michael, told a part of her story, in such a terribly long time. But suddenly, he didn’t want to. What he wanted, more than anything, was to hear someone else talk about Michael Burnham. He wanted to know about this timeline, where she was happy with people who would be with her when she emerged in the future also. He wanted to imagine that someday those wedding photos could be recreated, sans Kirk and Ariam. He wanted some part of this timeline to be infused not with sorrow, but with hope. 

“But Captain Burnham,” he said, rather enjoying the well-earned title in his mouth, “tell me more about you.”

And she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to hear everyone’s Kelvin-Burnham headcanons. Also, thank you also so much for reading, especially those of you who’ve stuck with me from the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Next update... idk when I feel like it. All 5 chapters up before Disco 3 pinkie promise.


End file.
